


Web of Lies

by cosmogyrals



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyrals/pseuds/cosmogyrals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her travels with the Doctor, Martha finds herself telling a different set of lies to everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Web of Lies

Since leaving the Doctor, Martha's life has become one elaborate lie. Her friends, perplexed by her entire personality changing over the course of a week, ask her what's wrong. "I was in love," Martha explains, "and he didn't realise it." And it's even partially true - just not the whole truth. They don't quite believe it, of course, and they drift away over time - but Martha can't relate to them the way she once did, and the lies are becoming more and more difficult to maintain.

Her family asks her how she's doing. "I'm fine," she replies automatically, every time they ask, nothing in her expression saying otherwise. She's broken inside; she can feel the raw, jagged edges cutting away at her. But they need her to be strong, and she doesn't admit that she wakes up sometimes at night, half-convinced that she's still out there, surrounded by Toclafane, with only the TARDIS key around her neck keeping her safe. Besides, she's well enough most of the time.

When she joins UNIT, they ask her about her travels with the Doctor. They want to know what happened on the Valiant - what really happened, since nobody believes a word Lucy Saxon says. "He was mad," Martha tells them, "and Lucy shot him." No mention of Harold Saxon's real identity, though she knows that UNIT has files on the Master. Nothing about the year that never was. Martha has become skilled at lying by telling the truth, because Harold Saxon was mad, and Lucy did shoot him, and that's all the explanation UNIT's going to get.

Tom traces the scars on her stomach with his fingertips the first time they're in bed together and asks how she got them. Martha tells her first outright lie: "I got them in a car accident." Never mind that Tom's a doctor and has seen enough injuries received in accidents that, if he thinks about it, he can probably tell that they're from something else entirely. He knows that she works with aliens, but telling him that she got them from the descendents of humans during a year that was wiped from the Earth's timeline is too much to expect him to handle.

"How have you been doing?" the Doctor asks when they meet again, and she can see the concern in his brown eyes. She can't quite meet his gaze as she answers. "Wonderfully," she says, forcing a smile. She doesn't want him to worry about her, doesn't want him to blame himself for what's happened to her. She's never lied to the Doctor before, but she knows that there are times when telling a lie is better than telling the truth.


End file.
